Chapter 7

I woke up the next morning to the sun shining brightly in my eyes. I groaned and rolled over, trying to block the sun out. Cursing under my breath because the sun was so damn bright, I reluctantly waited for Amy to do her usual wake-up-Ponyboy-by-sitting-on-him routine. After a few minutes when I didn't feel her weight on my legs, I opened one eye and squinted blearily across the room at her bed. The bed was empty, with the sheets messed up and the blankets on the floor. Ames must've gotten up already. I thought sleepily. God, she's an early riser. I listened carefully to the sounds downstairs. That was weird...I didn't hear Amy's loud, cheery, high voice. Amy has a very loud voice because the CP makes her have trouble controlling the volume of her voice. Many times when we're out in public, Darry has had to tell her to keep her voice down. And when she gets excited, her voice gets higher and louder. Usually in the mornings when she gets up before me, I can hear her voice, and even what she's saying, over Darry and Sodapop's voices. This morning, I heard Darry's low rumble, and Soda's excited tenor voice. But no Amy. Where is she? I wondered. My mind was still half-asleep. Then I rolled over again, this time right onto the floor. The hard jolt and thump woke me up, and the horrible events of the past two and a half weeks came rushing back to me in one stomach-sinking swoop. Amy was in the hospital, seriously ill. She might not live to see fifteen. Then I remembered our visit to Kiera yesterday, and what she had revealed. Bob had hurt Amy. We were going to get revenge today. Well, maybe not revenge, Darry would kill us if we got into trouble with the fuzz. But we were going to get some answers, and maybe a glimpse into the mind of Bob Sheldon. I nimbly climbed out of my tangle of blankets and headed downstairs.

"Mornin' Ponyboy." Soda said cheerfully, helping himself to a second helping of eggs, and unleashing a huge spoonful of grape jelly on them. Darry, however, turned at Soda's greeting and stared at me, a spatula in his hand. From the look on his face, I knew that Sodapop had told him everything that had happened with Kiera yesterday. I sat down at the table, and helped myself to some eggs and bacon, waiting anxiously for the lecture that Darry was sure to deliver.

"Pony..." he started seriously. "I heard about what happened with Kiera yesterday, and I'm not sure you two should get involved in this. I don't want you getting hurt." I knew that Darry was only trying to protect his "kid brothers" but he was pissing me off. Why didn't he just leave us to what we thought was right? I may not use my head sometimes, but Soda's a smart kid. He's got common sense. Why couldn't Darry remember that Soda wouldn't let anything happen to me or him?

"Darry..." Soda started warningly. I could tell he was just as annoyed as I was by Darry's over protectiveness. But not out and out mad. Soda only gets mad if there's something real big going on. Such as Bob beating up our fragile little sister. Fragile-I almost laughed out loud at my thoughts. Amy wasn't fragile, at least not mentally. She was as not fragile as it was possible to be. She was the smartest person I knew, and she knew what was right and what was wrong-most of the time anyway. Unfortunately, she was so desperate to have more friends that she got herself into trouble a lot of times-making friends with the wrong crowd and all. But I knew she would never do something real dangerous, like getting into a car with a drunk driver, or smoking a pack a day like I do. She's been telling me for years that I should quit smoking, that if you quit before you're twenty you have a better chance of it having no bad health effects on you. Amy's always coming out with weird facts like that; I don't know where she finds out these things. Maybe 'cause she reads so much.

"I'm serious!" Darry said indignantly. "Aside from the fact that I love you two too much to let anything happen to you, if the Social Services people see you getting into dangerous things, they could take you guys away from me, and put you in boys' homes. Now, you wouldn't want that, would you?"

"No..." Soda and I muttered in unison. And we were telling the truth. The three of us loved each other more than anyone and anything else in the world. The thought of being separated, especially at such a crucial time, was unbearable.

"So?" Darry prompted. "Promise me that you two won't go anywhere near Bob, dig?"

"Dig..." Soda muttered quietly. I could almost see him wrestling in his mind with his desire to kick Bob's ass for what he did to Amy. I didn't blame him. I wanted to do the same thing myself. But I knew Darry was right; we could get seriously hurt by Bob. If he had beaten up Amy that badly, what would he do to Amy's brothers?

"Pony?" Darry turned to me. I forced myself to sound calm.

"Dig..." My voice trailed off as our front door banged and Johnny walked in. He had a fresh bruise on his cheek from his father's latest beating. Johnny pulled out a kitchen chair and flopped ungracefully into it.

"Hey, Johnnycake, what's up?" Soda asked cheerfully; glad to have an excuse for Darry to stop badgering us. Johnny gave a small shrug and began wolfing down the plate of bacon that still remained on the table. Darry and Soda and I watched in amazement.

"Glory, Johnny, don't they ever feed you at your house?" Darry asked in amazement. Johnny made an indistinct noise and shook his head.

"Naw." he said through a mouthful of bacon. "Mom's too drunk to fix meals half the time and Dad doesn't care much for food. He likes beating me instead. I'm his breakfast." Darry stared at the phenomenal amount of food this skinny sixteen-year old kid was eating, and then his eyes slid to the icebox, which was nearly empty.

"Glory, kid, you eat more food than Sodapop and Ponyboy put together." he said in amazement. I knew he was worried about paying for more food. We've had it real rough financially since Mom and Dad died. I don't think Darry quite realized that he had to pay the bills by a certain date; as illustrated by the first time, a month after Mom and Dad died; the electrical company shut off our electricity. We had to go almost two weeks without lights, TV, or refrigeration until Darry scraped up enough money to pay the electric bill. I don't know where he got the money. I suspect Two-Bit's mom gave him most of it. Since then, Darry's been real careful about money, but it's hard when you have a twenty-year old boy, a teenage girl, and two teenage boys living in the same house. I mean, I eat a lot, and Soda does too. Amy eats like a horse, and yet she still stays skinny. It's amazing. And on top of that, we have Johnny, Steve, Two-Bit and Dally coming over to the house almost every day, eating our food, watching our TV, and smoking our cigarettes. That costs a lot of money, and I know Darry's worried that if he doesn't keep up with the bills and provide a "stable financial situation" as the social worker put it, for us, that me and Soda, and Amy will get taken away from him. And as I said before, that would be...intolerable.

"I think there's another box of cereal downstairs." Sodapop offered. He knows that being a parent at twenty years old is hard on Darry, and tries to help him out whenever he can, although I know that Soda's a kid at heart. He reminds me a little bit of an over-eager little kid, wanting to help out so badly, but yet somehow messing things up more. He doesn't mean to. Soda's got a good heart. Darry nodded wordlessly and hurried downstairs. Once he was out of earshot, Soda turned to me and said in a low, hurried voice.

"Pony, we have to go talk to Bob. It's the only way we'll ever find out how bad he hurt her." From the tone of Soda's voice, and the way his eyes had suddenly turned stormy, I had a bad feeling that this "talk" was going to include fists.

"But Soda, Darry's gonna kill us..." My voice trailed off. I sounded like a goddamn little kid who was a little tattletale. I remembered when me and Amy were three and four years old, how it was this whole big thing to "tattle" to a teacher, or a parent, or another "big kid" as we always called the kids who looked like giants to us, but in reality were only eight or nine. Soda was always a big kid, but he hung out with us little kids. Hell, he acted like a four year old himself. Darry always hung out with the older kids, trying to act cool but not quite pulling it off. In reality, I think we all would've been better off hanging out with our own age groups.

"I don't care if I get yelled at. And you know Darry would never hurt us physically." He had a good point there. The worst Darry could do was yell at us, maybe take away some TV time. That was about it. Darry hadn't physically hurt us since...ever. That was Dally's job, although he never really hurt any of the gang. He only hurt people who he thought deserved it. I smiled as I remembered one time when he had beat up a kid for bullying Amy.

Flashback:

It was around when me and Ames were in the first grade, 'round mid April. The weather was finally starting to clear up, and we were able to go outside at recess again. The kids ran around and climbed all over the large playground, played kickball on the spacious blacktop. And Amy was in the thick of it all, running and tripping, skinning her knees on a regular basis. She loved recess, even though she couldn't do many of the things the other kids could do. She was happy just being a kid.

It was by the playground that it happened. Amy was hanging onto the monkey bars for dear life, too scared to move forward, yet not having the coordination to move backwards. One of the bigger kids, a third-grader, I think, leaned over and smirked at my frightened sister.

"Hey, cripple!" he taunted. "What's the matter, you scared? Aw, you're a little cripple BABY!" And with that, he leaned over and gave Amy a mighty shove. Unable to hold on, Amy's fingers slipped, fumbling frantically for something to hold onto. She landed the wrong way on her ankle and began crying loudly. Dally, who had been watching from the other side of the playground, sprinted over.

"Hey!" he yelled at the bully. "Don't hurt Amy! She's my friend!" And with that, he swung a mighty punch at the kid. It hit him right in the face. That kid had a black eye for a week. The bully scampered quickly. Everyone was afraid of Dallas Winston, the big, mean fourth grader. Even the fifth and sixth graders knew not to mess with Dally. He was dangerous. Once he had made sure that the bully had run for his life, Dally knelt down beside Amy, a concerned look on his face.

"You okay, Ames?" he asked, in a warm, caring tone of voice that he only used for people he really cared about. Amy whimpered and shook her head. Tears were still rolling down her cheeks. Dally gently pulled Amy to her feet, by which time me and Soda had run over. Darry wasn't in our school that year, he had just graduated the previous year to the junior high/high school. Instead of being a big-shot sixth grader, he was a tiny little seventh-grader. The three of us crowded around Amy, letting her lean on our shoulders as we escorted her to the nurse's office. As we made our way awkwardly across the blacktop, Amy looked at Dallas, her eyes filled with pain.

"Dally?" she said softly. We stopped as Dally turned to look at Amy. "Yeah?"

"Thanks for hurting that kid." Dallas gave Amy one of his rare smiles. "No problem, kid."

"Ponyboy?" Sodapop's voice cut into my thoughts. "Pony?" I tore myself out of my memories and looked up.

"Sorry, Soda. I wasn't paying attention. What did you say?" Soda shook his head in exasperation.

"Glory, Pony, your head's always in the clouds." He grinned good-naturedly and helped himself to the one remaining piece of bacon before continuing.

"Anyway, Pony, so we've got to talk to Bob. I want to find out what he did our sister. You can either come with me or not. Your choice." Sodapop leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and stared at me, obviously waiting for my decision. I threw my hands up in exasperation.

"Fine. I'll go." Soda grinned. He had known that I would come. Then, simultaneously, we looked at Johnny, who had gotten up during my daydreaming. He was now rummaging in the icebox for more food, as he had reduced the plate of bacon to a plate of greasy crumbs.

"Johnnycake...ya wanna come with us today? Ya know, for Amy?" Johnny took his head out of the icebox and looked at us. His eyes were like two saucers, they were so big, and his face was pale. He was trembling. But he straightened himself up and said definitely,

"Yeah...I'll come. For Amy." I was moved by the awesome amount of love for my little sister Johnny was showing. This was coming face-to-face with his attacker, and Amy's attacker, who might quite possibly hurt him again. Bob was dangerous, and I wouldn't have blamed Johnny if he backed out. But he didn't. Johnny was conquering his fear...all for Amy. Good god, I thought as I heard Darry come back up the stairs, I sure hope that if Amy pulls through this that she likes him as much as he likes her. Otherwise, our house just might turn into Heartbreak Hotel. Sodapop opened his mouth to say something, perhaps to express his own amazement that Johnny had the courage to come face-to-face with Bob again, when Darry appeared in the doorway holding the last box of cornflakes.

"Here you go, Johnnycake." he said softly, plopping the cereal box down on the table. "Eat as much as you like. You need to get some meat on those bones." Johnny was almost a skeleton, he was so skinny. No wonder he ate half our food when he was over here. The phone rang shrilly, and I jumped, lost in my thoughts. Soda laughed when he saw me jump.

"Glory, Pony, you're as jumpy as a cat these days. Usually it's Amy who jumps." The phone rang again, and Darry snatched it up before it could ring again.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Hamerito!" Mr. Hamerito is Darry's boss at the roofing company. "You need me in today? Mhmm...double pay? I'll be right there." Usually Darry gets the day off on Sunday, but today, apparently the company was extremely busy and they needed Darry to lend a hand.

"This is perfect!" Soda whispered gleefully to me as Darry hung up the phone. "This way we won't have to sneak past Darry to get out of the house. We can go and be back before Darry comes home. Golly, Pony, luck is sure on our side." I smiled weakly. I still wasn't convinced that we should do this.

"Yeah. We're sure lucky." I echoed feebly. Sodapop didn't seem to notice that I was having second thoughts. He was watching Darry shrug into his jacket.

"Now I gotta go to work, guys. Don't go doing dangerous stunts, now." he warned. Soda and I nodded obediently, but inside I had a sinking feeling that going to talk to the guy who had beat up our sister fell into the category of "dangerous stunts". Darry must have noticed the guilty look on my face.

"Or do I have to call Two-Bit or Dally to come baby-sit you guys like babies?" Soda shook his head.

"No, no." he said quickly. "We're fine here. Honest. Right, Ponyboy?" Soda poked me hard in the ribs.

"Ow! Yeah...yeah, just fine." Johnny stifled his laughter in his cereal bowl. Apparently, we had Darry fooled, because he dropped the subject and headed out the door.

"I'll be back around six." he called over his shoulder as the door slammed behind him. Soda scampered to the window to watch Darry drive away. As soon as his car was out of sight, he looked at me and Johnny with that excited, boyish look on his face.

"Come on, let's go!" He dragged me to the door, while Johnny trailed along behind. I was still reluctant to do this. I just had a bad feeling about the whole thing, plus lying to Darry made me uncomfortable. I knew we shouldn't do this. Ha, and Darry says I have no common sense.

"And do we...do we know where Bob is?" Johnny asked, speaking for the first time since we had left the house. His voice was unnaturally high, and his eyes were popping. I knew he was terrified of facing Bob, and was probably half-hoping Soda would have no clue where to find him. Unfortunately, his hopes were dashed.

"We do. He hangs out by the movie theater around this time, I asked Cherry Valance."

There came a weak "Oh." from Johnny, and then we were silent, uncomfortably awaiting the confrontation to come.

We rounded the corner to the drive-in movie theater where I spend so much of my time. It looked different now, somehow bigger and more imposing. It was around my usual movie time, but the sky somehow seemed darker, more ominous. The line of cars somehow scared me, yet comforted me at the same time. At least if Bob killed us, there'd be witnesses. And there he was, by the rusty old fence, surrounded by beer bottles, beating up Cherry Valance. He was shouting something unintelligible at her, but as we got closer, his curse words were all too clear.

"Hey!" Bob shouted drunkenly, spotting the three of us at last. He dropped Cherry and started towards us on unsteady legs. Cherry took advantage of the opportunity to escape. As she scampered past us, I caught sight of her expression. It was pure terror filling those stunning eyes. Her long red hair whipped around her back as she half-turned to take in the sight of us.

"Be careful!" she whispered frantically, her eyes darting over to Bob, who was lurching ever closer. "He's stone drunk." She ran on, her soft footfalls puncturing the unusually silent air.

"Oh yeah, like we couldn't figure that out from all the beer bottles by his feet." Soda muttered sarcastically, and I was slightly surprised. That wasn't really a Sodapop thing to say. Two-Bit, maybe, but not Soda. I guess Two-Bit's sarcastic sense of humor was rubbing off on us.

"Whadda ya doing here?" Bob asked as soon as he got close enough. His words were so slurred that it took me a minute to figure out what he was saying.

"We...we want to know what you did to our sister." Soda managed bravely. We were standing in a line, me first, then Sodapop in the middle, and Johnny on the end, shaking like mad. Bob was leering over us, so close I could smell the booze on his breath.

"You're sister the dirty cripple with the mouth?" I shuddered. I had never heard so many insults against Amy in one sentence, and believe me, Amy gets plenty insulted. A lot of people don't even notice she's disabled until she takes out her wheelchair when she goes out. And it's true that Amy can get a bit mouthy at times. When she's stressed, her sarcastic sense of humor just sorta spills out and she gets mouthy.

"Yeah, that's her." Soda shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Bob's eyes. Johnny was cowering next Soda, whimpering like a frightened puppy. Bob noticed.

"Aw, and look who we have here! It's little Johnny Cade, scared of his own shadow after I beat him up good. Wanna 'nother beating, kid? Do ya?" Johnny shook his head frantically. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a frightened squeak. This made Bob roll with laughter, rocking back and forth on his unsteady feet. When he was finished, he turned back to me and Sodapop.

"Anyways, your bitch of a sister deserved what she got. Cripples like her shouldn't even be born. She shoulda been in a girls' home long ago. I'm surprised you kept her. But then again, your family's weird enough anyway." My blood boiled. He had no right to insult my family like that. I moved to hit him, slap him, whatever I could do to hurt him. But Johnny got there first. He slapped Bob so hard in the face that Bob staggered backwards a few feet, reeling drunkenly.

"Johnny..." I said in a shocked voice. Soda looked shocked, too. Was this shy little Johnny Cade we were seeing? Lately it seemed like my entire world was turning upside down and inside out. Nothing made sense anymore. Johnny looked just as shocked as us at his own daring. Before any of us could say anything more, he had turned tail and ran, his footfalls slapping across the concrete. Me and Sodapop were on our own.

"You'll pay for that, kid!" Bob bellowed after him. Then he turned back to us. "And you two will pay for both him and that bitchy crippled sister of yours!" It was me he hit first. He punched me so hard in the jaw that I could almost feel it dislocate. I heard another punch, and a groan, and I knew he was hurting Soda, too. Then Bob punched me again, this time square in the chest. He knocked me right over. I lashed out wildly, kicking and screaming and punching, trying to defend myself however I could. He kept on hitting. One of my kicks got Bob in the stomach, and he doubled over in pain. Sodapop took advantage of the opportunity.

"Come on, Pony, let's go!" Half running, half being dragged along by Soda, I just wanted to get as far away from Bob as I could. I was acutely aware that everybody in the movie house had stopped watching the movie and started watching us. We were now the entertainment, and truth be told, I really didn't care. I didn't even notice where we were running to until Sodapop dragged me up the front steps and into our house. Where Darry was sitting comfortably in an armchair, reading the newspaper. He lowered the newspaper slowly and stared at us.

"Sodapop Curtis, what in the world happened to you and Ponyboy?" he asked in shock. I took a good look at Soda. He was bleeding profusely from the side of his head, and he had the beginnings of a black eye. His left arm was swollen, and hung strangely at his side. I figured I looked just as bad. We had left a trail of blood behind us, whether Soda's or mine or both, I didn't really know.

"D-Darry!" Sodapop stammered in surprise. I knew he'd counted on Darry not being there when we got home, so we could clean ourselves up and act like nothing had ever happened. Just our luck that our plan had to go wrong.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Soda continued. Darry got up, folding his newspaper neatly and placing it on the vacated armchair. He circled the two of us slowly, like a hawk circling its prey.

"Got out early." he said shortly, still circling the pair of us. "I thought I told you two to not go getting into any trouble."

"Well, uh, well we..." Soda stammered. But before he could come up with an excuse, the front door creaked open slowly. In came Kiera, on her stomach, just as bruised and bloody as me and Soda.

"Glory, Kiera, what happened?" Darry asked in alarm. "How'd you get up the steps?"s

"I grew angel wings and flew, what did you think? I crawled, you knuckleheads!" Kiera gasped. I had to smother a smile. Even when she's in considerable pain, Kiera never loses her sarcasm.

"What happened to you?" Darry asked again. Kiera shook her head.

"Bob." she gasped. "Is mad...about...you two...escaping...so he...took it out...on me. He...was chasing me...last time I...looked back."

"Bob?" Darry asked, looking at the three of us suspiciously. "Isn't that the Soc who beat up Johnny? What does he have to do with this?" The three of us exchanged guilty glances. We had vowed not to tell Darry about this, but now it looked like our secret was out.

"Well, uh, we..." Soda stuttered, trying to think of the best way to phrase to Darry that we lied to him, disobeyed him, and got ourselves into trouble yet again. But before he could go any farther, there came the sound of heavy footfalls. The front door banged loudly, making us all jump. A look of pure terror came over Kiera's face.

"Oh no." she gasped. "He's here!"

A/N: That was exactly seven pages. I'm on a roll. Sorry about the long chapter length. As always, review!